This blog is intended to cover side issues emerging from the discussions of artefact collecting (including metal detecting) on my "Portable Antiquities and Heritage Issues" blog. This allows answering misleading points which may require it without sidetracking of other discussions onto unrelated topics, thus freeing the main blog for more serious stuff.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Mental Illness in the Upper ranks of the ACCG?

*I must admit it never occurred to me that an explanation of the sheer illogicality of the arguments of the US coin dealers lobby was mental illness. Now I have seen two posts made simultaneously by two of them, I am beginning to think it a reasonable explanation of the inability of the officers of the ACCG to engage in meaningful debate. Look at this:

Our observations are as much ourselves as what we observe. It is a dance where we lead and the universe follows. Sometimes, a number of us get together within a temporary, and carefully constructed matrix and we build ourselves a box to contain what we create, together. [...] What is the universe's response to this? It forgets us, because we can no longer dance with it -- we are stuck in a box! Frustrated, by this, the universe then does its best to dance with all of the boxes together. It finds this quite difficult to do and often has to eliminate a few boxes who can't keep step with the rest. But at best, it is a clumsy dance full of trial and error. We call this evolution. Those of us who are vigilant quickly step outside of our box and say "I am here!" and the universe either starts to dance with us or at least marks us down on its dance card for later.

Deep philosophy? Wayne Sayles seems to think so, but put it in the context of the entire self-gratulatory text and try and work out what the author is trying to get at. Beats me. But - like Peter Tompa's conspiracy theories - it apparently appeals to Sayles' sense of reality.

Indeed it seems that the Constitution of the United States of America, as presently interpreted by unelected bureaucrats whose biased interpretations are validated by left wing activist judges, might mean little these days. That is however an illusion. The Constitution is a supreme and eternally enduring covenant between the US Government and the people. It transcends the transient affairs and management of any Governmental agency, and also the judiciary, and will never become insignificant. Any bureaucrat or judge seeking to manipulatively negate or disregard that covenant might perhaps consider that being strung up on a lamppost along Constitution Avenue is by no means out of the question, when so-called “civil servants” charged with the administration of the affairs of our Government demonstrate that they have other allegiances, and that the desires of the American people are not important to them, or that the courts will not respect those desires. [...] it would [...] be wise for those who administer our nation's affairs to bear that possibility in mind.

If any US readers have any difficulty in seeing what is wrong with that, imagine its author had written instead of "US Constitution" - say - Magna Carta and see how it looks. In other words judges who decide that the law says something other than what coin collectors (for it is they - pars pro toto - constitute here "the American people") should bear in mind that they might fall victtim to the sort of of violence we see currently playing out of the streets of Cairo? think somebody is getting a bit carried away and revealing a bit too much of his true nature. I bet he has a gun at home, too.

I sincerely hope and trust that our present difficulties will not come to such an extreme. The conduct of those responsible for the State Department's notoriously abusive Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs does not, however, engender any feeling of confidence. It seems to me that those in control of this agency are very far out of touch with the concerns and feelings of many of our citizens. It can be affirmed that their actions and decisions completely disregard the legislative intent of Congress, and have provoked an increasing sense of anger, resentment, and a growing public view that the oppressive abuses of this out of control agency must be stopped. It could, and no doubt will, be argued that those offended by the oppressive conduct of this agency are a minority. That is true. But it is not the American way to take unjustifiable oppression of any minority lightly. A terrible Civil War with a huge death roll was fought over such an issue.

The slave owners would apparently not give up their practices any other way.

It seems to me that people who - apparently in all seriousness - come out with such Glennbeckery; warning lynch mobs may round up the lawmakers and judges of their state over a load of old dugup coins, and talking about dancing with the universe in little boxes, really should seek professional help.

About Me

British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.